You truly cannot move at a faster pace than the greater intelligence behind life. TRULY. Every step of the way, IS the way. A few months back, I found myself absolutely exhausted of my running script around this Goop article - thoughts of questioning when I thought it would come out, hopes that it would be a gamechanger for my business, fears that I was holding too high of expectations - and it dawned on me, “Jessie! There is nothing holding you back in life… ever! Your thoughts are making you feel like things should be happening faster or life would look different if only things would be happening when you think they should, but beyond your thinking there is the flow of life that you can trust… stop spinning about it, it will come out when it’s supposed to… enjoy what’s happening now.” It’s amazing when you think you know something deep down then you get smacked upside the head with an aha that takes you deeper. And guess what happened once I saw this, yet again, for myself? It felt like I was pulled back at warp speed into observation mode of the unfoldings of the last year anticipating Goop’s release and of course, I could see how all of my experiences, my insights and realizations, HAD to happen BEFORE the article came out. If it was released when I was originally expecting it to, I wouldn’t have been ready. I would have managed because we always rise to the occasion, but it holds so much more impact and I’m so much more peaceful, now. Takeaway? I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again… LIVE IN THE FEELING OF HINDSIGHT.

FOREBODING JOY IS A REAL THING.

Shoutout to Brene Brown for this heads up! The day Goop came out I was so excited I could hardly get out of bed fast enough. If the evening before (when I got the official YES IT’S COMING OUT TOMORROW!) was any kind of indication of my mood, the big release day was going to feel like my first visit to Disneyland mixed with Christmas eve as a youngin, the moment I turned around to my husband on bended knee, college graduation day and my wedding day all wrapped up into one. I went to the computer before the Goop newsletter was sent out, carefully typed in g-o-o-p dot c-o-m, scrolled down the homepage with baited breath and BOOM!!! There it was… the perfectly curated intro to the article, scroll scroll scroll, then…. my face. In one of the top online magazines on the internet. Cue excited feelings aaaandd….. nothing. What took the excitement’s place?! Everything that I would have never thought would be flying through my mind. Fears, worries, stress. ALL made up. Brene Brown says, “Our actual experiences of joy—those intense feelings of deep spiritual connection and pleasure—seize us in a very vulnerable way” and boyyyy was she right! To be completely honest, I have brushed by this feeling before but it’s never sat with me the way it did the day of the release. All day I felt like I was walking a tightrope of extreme joy and gratitude, then my foot would occasionally slip into doom and gloom. Luckily, with what I know to be true about my mind, I was able to witness it all and consistently stay in the moment because I so desperately didn’t want to miss any of it by being distracted by the nonsense trying to run the show upstairs (shoutout to the hubs for stepping in as a sideline coach!). All of this to say, I am incredibly grateful I was able to witness myself in the experience because it was the first time that JOY churned up fear in a real way for me. Staying out of the muck of my mind while chaos is going on around me?! I can ride that wave til the cows come home, but this was a new one for me. The takeaway? FEARFUL THOUGHTS ARE TRULY NONSENSICAL AND THERE IS NEVER A GOOD TIME TO ENTERTAIN THEM.

With that, I will leave you for today, dear diary. Moving forward, let’s remember that you’ll be learning new things every day for the rest of your life and you don’t know anything til the moment that you know everything.

“Maybe it’s the ultimate act of self-love to be a spiritual activist FOR YOURSELF…”

This bubbled up the other day as I started out on a long overdue and much needed walk for fresh air. The Southern California rain had been encouraging a very introverted and introspective mood that was frankly quite low to begin with due to my hormones raging from switching up my birth control after 15 years. I had been really in my head about my next moves for work; What’s on the back burner, what’s ahead of me and brainstorming what I could do to move things forward. My thinking went from creative, exploratory, exciting to DOOM AND GLOOM. Isn’t it amazing how Thought can do that? One minute you’re in the middle of playing around in your thoughts as if you have every color of Play Doh and you’re curiously putting different sculptures together, breaking them apart, smooshing them into new shapes. Then all of a sudden the Play Doh weighs more, the beautiful bright colors are no longer and the dough isn’t pliable. You look down at a pile of rocks that are multiplying with each rock feeling really real, really heavy and really significant - aka DOOM AND GLOOM.

With my hormonal low mood, I already felt like I had a thick layer of green gas hanging around me 24/7 that I was fully aware I was looking at life through. I reminded myself on multiple occasions, even when I didn’t sense the green gas as much, to not take my gnarly thoughts seriously. My spiritual self had my human self’s back, so to speak. But who knows what happened on this particular day, the thought storm of Play Doh turned rocks was too heavy to handle. I reached into the ol’ goody bag of tools I have for these moments, also known as the only tool I have for these moments, and I asked myself OUT LOUD, “What do I need to do right now?” Wisdom always knocks with the answer and I was moved to go outside for a walk, and as always, it was exactly what I needed.

After getting outside, my perspective naturally came back and I could see where my thoughts went to hell without me noticing. You may already be a step ahead of me, but it was the moment I started to fall into the ol’ trap of needing to figure out things to do to move me forward faster in my work - whatever that even means. I say that because my own expectations and timelines are all made up, so who am I comparing myself to should I figure out something that would move me along faster? My own expectations? That again, are made up? I remembered all of this then AHA! What I know to be true, what is best for my well-being, is to TRUST the greater intelligence of life. TRUST that Universal Mind, the ever-flowing energy that is around me and within me, that my Wisdom is tapped into, will continue to nudge me forward via my gut instinct and when I heed it’s direction, everything unfolds EXACTLY the way it’s supposed to - beyond any of my wildest hopes or expectations. With my re-gained perspective came that delicious feeling of peace washing over me then there she was…

“Maybe it’s the ultimate act of self-love to be a spiritual activist FOR YOURSELF…”

It was so clear. To stay in the drivers seat of my thoughts, to remind myself that I can’t trust or believe the things going through my mind because my feelings coming from those thoughts were going to make me feel scared, anxious, fearful or just plain yucky - especially when I’m already in a low mood (from the hormones, but generally also from hunger, lack of sleep, hard day, etc etc) - is being an activist for my spiritual health to continue leading a soul-centered life. Like I said earlier, acting accordingly to what I know to be true about what’s going on in my mind when I feel like shit (aka nonsense that shouldn’t be paid attention to) is merely my spiritual self having my human self’s back. It’s like seeing the traffic on the freeway coming to a screeching halt from a distance so you make a quick decision to exit and take side streets to your destination.

So I say do it. Take the exit before the three car pile up. Be your own spiritual activist for a soul-centered life.

It’s the ultimate act in self-love. If you’ve ever been unsure how to have self-love, this is it, folks. Honoring what you know to be true, that Universal Mind HAS YOU, and it isn’t some airy-fairy, luck of the draw look at life. That it’s 100% my experience, as I’m sure you’ve experienced as well, that when you follow those inner nudges - your KNOWING inside - life flows and unfolds in a manner that can’t be described. Things always work out. So speak up for yourself! Talk to those very real looking thoughts and tell them you don’t want to believe them anymore and fall back into the lazy river of life that’s already flowing and pulling you forward!

Lastly, after having this insight I approached a staircase I needed to climb. I looked up at how many stairs there were and how steep they were, I took a deep breath in with my eyes closed, then with my first step on the first stair my inner voice, my Wisdom, said “Slow and steady.” I felt a zing of energy go from my toes through the crown of my head. I knew it meant much more than just climbing the stairs in front of me. I lifted my head in full gratitude with tears in my eyes and said, “Thank you.”

Here’s to you and your spiritual activism for your soul-centered life…

Have you ever noticed that as a culture when we refer to riding a roller coaster at a theme park, the perspective or feeling we get from it is FUN. Maybe we aren’t personally big fans of roller coasters, but we know the intention behind the experience is to be thrilled, get an adrenaline rush, feel accomplished and revved up to go for another spin when it’s over.

But when we’re asked by our friends and loved ones how life has been when we’re catching up, if we reply with, “life has been a roller coaster!” the intention behind it and the feeling we share is that it’s been kind of rough. Of course we’re referring to the highs and lows we’ve been experiencing, but we initially get a sense that, in general, we’ve been feeling the suck. Today, I share with you a short story that takes back the meaning of roller coaster when we refer to our adventurous lives.

Because that is what life is, pure adventure.

﻿If that sounds a bit too sugar coated for you, let me remind you: The deeper we are grounded in the perspective that we are ALWAYS OK, that we are standing in the middle of our well-being 100% of the time and the only thing that keeps us from feeling it is Thought. When we find ourselves in the pits, we may be hypnotized by it momentarily (or not so momentarily), but we can trust that eventually we will naturally shift into more of an observer of our own thinking as opposed to believing we’re messed up, life is falling apart, or everything is going to hell in a handbasket. So our experiences - good and bad - can then just be part of the whole adventure.

Is it really possible to be in the driver’s seat of our experience when we’re feeling shitty? YES! Read on…

The other night, I found myself really exhausted at the end of a long day. I had been in my thoughts about a big project that’s on the move, so I was more than done with myself. As I was driving home, sitting in traffic, the wave of exhaustion and being tired of staying in my thoughts made me cry - it was a good release. I got home, I was alone for the evening so I plopped in front of the TV and ate my dinner. Moments later I felt the sadness coming towards me again, but this time I had to pause the TV to give full attention to what felt like a force running full steam ahead right at me. I knew I couldn’t see it’s face for what it was because it was moving too fast then it hit me and I wept. Full on. I was looking at what was around me and thinking how a book on my coffee table that I’ve been loving didn’t look appealing anymore. I thought about my clients, my future success… I questioned everything. All within a matter of moments and I kept weeping.

Shortly after these few moments of grave sadness passed through me, it was as if I could see clearly again. I thought to myself, “My God! You are weeping as if someone died!” I asked myself out loud, “Am I going to be OK?” And of course, my Wisdom inside of me nodded with an ever so knowing, YES. And within a few breaths, perspective came back to me. I was calm, I remembered all that I knew, then I was moved to take a shower so I took it. I headed to bed after this whirlwind experience that felt incredibly spiritual - though it was painful, I couldn’t help but find it awe-inspiring. I was so grateful for the understanding I have of how our mind works. Even though my insecurity level was quite high, my consciousness stayed quite high also. In the old days when I would experience this type of force of insecure thinking, I would believe it meant something about me, about my life. I would get tossed into an anxiety attack and it would take a few days of analyzing where it came from to gain some relief. This time around, even though those same insecure thoughts flowed through and I had to hold ground… I did just that. I held my ground and rode the wave of sadness. I witnessed myself. I let the gnarly wave of Thought energy kick everything up in my mind and I reminded myself that it was exactly that. It wasn’t real, and it would be gone soon… however painful and uncomfortable, I sat in the experience and reminded myself what I knew.

When I spoke with my husband the next day about it all, he clarified an incredible perspective on the whole experience in a way that I loved. I knew what it was that I was experiencing (Thought), but I couldn’t stop reveling at how intense it was.

“It’s the adventure of living life” he said.

Beautiful. Simple. Ordinary.

That’s exactly it, my love. It’s the adventure of living life. The roller coaster. There’s no need to make sense of it. There’s no need to judge it. It’s just part of the ever evolving experience of being a spiritual being having a human experience on this planet. And it’s in those moments that we learn, we grow, we’re reminded of what we know and what we don’t know; they keep us on our toes and provide texture and color to our lives.

Well, I never lost it, but for the last month, I have been so incredibly hyper aware of my thinking. Instead of incredibly let’s go with, annoyingly, hyper aware of my thinking. I’ve been tossed in thought storm after thought storm about my work, where it’s going, what I’m doing to move it forward. I have been craving more. And what’s worse? I haven’t been able to define what that more is. Have you experienced that before? It’s usually the precursor experience to a big change which is exciting, but wow it can be a mess of chaos in my head. I have been in my own little Jessie jail because my awareness that I’m gripped and not enjoying the shift has been irritating me and keeping me stuck in a feeling that wasn’t bad but uncomfortable, like a backseat driver that you’re on a 7 hour journey with. I know that I’m caught up in my own tizzy, my own made-up whirlwind. I know it has nothing to do with anything because no matter how tossed up in my thinking I am, I am fully aware that Divine Mind - the greater intelligence of all things - Universe - has me. No matter how cross-eyed I get, it really doesn’t matter. There is a flow that is moving me forward and tossing me breadcrumbs to give me evidence of it - but even with the breadcrumbs that I’ve seen and this knowing about flow, I have been frozen by my thinking in my down time, trying to ‘figure things out’.

So how did I get back to the feeling of freedom again? How did my thinking walls come crashing down?

I’m so glad you asked because my understanding isn’t actually the answer, it’s quite the opposite.

Knowing what goes on inside of my operating system had actually made me stubbornly determined to get out of this feeling of confusion - how to get to the next level with my work and business - by trying to play volleyball with my thoughts and WIN. Like I was trying to trick the system. Does that make sense? I’ve been strong-arming my thoughts to the ground to triumphantly make space for my Wisdom (ahem, I failed… it doesn’t work that way). See, the beauty of this understanding is, once you know what your thoughts are, you aren’t pulled into them emotionally in the same kind of way ever again. Yes I have felt gripped, annoyed, confused, irritated as of late… but I never felt pulled under water. I haven’t once felt yucky inside, no anxiety or depression - the moment I’ve sat in front of a client or friend or even just being out in the world, my annoying thinking would wash away because that’s it’s nature and I let it. But that’s why it didn’t dawn on me what I was doing to myself. None of my stubborn thought wrestling had resulted in traditional alerts in my body because my understanding of what Thought is had made me still feel content (to a point). Whenever I was previously stuck in my thoughts I would get a tight chest, yucky belly, I’d get super hot and sweaty, but this time I was just sitting around frozen with my thinking face on (the permanent crevasse between my eyebrows has grown deeper by the day).

So what is actually happening when I do all of that wrestling? Just more thinking!!! Here’s what I witnessed in myself: I have been so determined to get through this little phase inside-out, that when my Wisdom came through one day to meditate, I actually said to myself, “No, that’s outside-in, I don’t need to DO something to get through this, my understanding will get me through this!” Oh my god - more thinking that told my Wisdom (which was informing me what to do next, from the inside-out!) to eff off and I believed it (face-palm).

And guess what? The moment I finally said, “Fine! I’ll go sit on the balcony for a few minutes!” BAM! It instantly came through my Wisdom to join a workout class…

What?!

Yes. You heard me right. Join a workout class then everything will become clear about what to do next with my business. And guess what? I haven’t even stepped foot in a class yet but my vision is clearing up again. When I heard that from within, I did some research on what classes sounded exciting - that in itself filled me with joy. From there it came through to get back to meditating in the morning, so I did that first thing this morning. And guess what? I’m sure you guessed it.. more inner promptings! During meditation, it came through to journal again. So I picked up my journal and when I started writing, my vision for the coming months and year spilled out of me, exactly what I’ve been searching for. Then guess what? After having that vision fall out of me, my eyes came off the page and my mouth dropped. I realized that all the opportunities that are swirling around me right now, that have previously brought me a glimmer of insight that they were somehow connected but I couldn’t understand how (that was all part of my frozen thinking), are all absolutely in line with the vision that plopped out of me. Furthermore, I could see how Wisdom that came through me for clients in recent sessions, was also Wisdom that I needed to hear for myself… it’s as if all the pieces to the puzzle fell in place. But again, that’s the beauty of knowing that we’re being pulled forward even when we are distracted by our thinking - it’s just so much more fun to be able to witness it as it’s actually unfolding.

We are an incredible species, us humans, don’t you agree? It’s like our spiritual selves hang back in these scenarios, sipping a Mai Thai, enjoying the view, and thinking to themselves, “They’ll get it together soon.” Then we see one thing and our whole perspective shifts and we’re back in alignment, seeing the magic unfold. What an incredible feeling to know that even when we feel tight, stuck, or challenged, it’s all going to release soon and that blip of time where you felt like you were being dragged through a keyhole backwards was just a period of growth, yet again. None of it is bad or wrong, it just is.

It feels wonderful to be back with you, thank you for allowing me the space to go into a proverbial hole and contemplate my navel. I’ve been missing writing and it feels great to be broken wide open again, I’m so grateful.

I hope you have a wonderful week and if you haven’t already, have so much fun hitting the poles to VOTE if you’re in the States! I personally, cannot wait.

I had had a great insight into my experience of something earlier and after discussing it with my husband Mike, we both said, "That would make for a great Monday Musings!" So I sat at the computer, got curious and distracted by other things, and by the time I opened up my website to start typing (a couple hours later) I had forgotten what the peak AHA! insight was that I wanted to write about! I have since remembered the insight, but I wanted to share this mini story because it is the perfect lead-in for what I am about to share.

I'm sure you have experienced a similar forgetfulness like I shared above (hello, everyday!), you can relate to the idea that our mind is constantly washing away our thinking. Our forgetfulness points us to the fact that not one thought is ever fixed, so why is it that so many of us feel stuck, so often? Why is it that we can have the thought "I wonder what I should get for dinner?" or "I love this movie!" or "That's a cute shirt!" and not get gripped by it, but the moment we have an insecure, fearful or angry thought like "What if my presentation doesn't go well?" or "Do I look heavier then I did yesterday?" or the biggy and most common: "What if I'm not good enough?" we believe that those thoughts mean something about us?

Sit with that for a second...

"I wonder what I should get for dinner?" versus "What if I'm not good enough?"

Why does one thought feel like it implies so much more than the other?

Well, as human beings, we very innocently believe that the thought "What if I'm not good enough?" tells us something about who we are, or where we are in the psychology of our minds, because the experience is so heavy when we think it. It feels so incredibly real to us because every thought comes with a feeling, so the emotion that washes over you and the sensations you feel in your body when you have that thought make you feel tiny, insecure and incapable. But guess what?

"What if I'm not good enough?" is a thought, just like "I wonder what I should get for dinner?" Nothing more, nothing less.

But how could this be true, you ask? "What if I'm not good enough?" comes with a plethora of evidence from your own life, with experiences and memories that you can pull up to support the fact that you may not be good enough to accomplish what you're worried about! That's the thing... our thinking is produced by a neutral energy that uses us to pass through, and in using us, it pulls up our own life's experiences as opposed to Henry's down the street (Imagine how easy it would be to disregard any insecure thinking if it brought up pictures from Henry's life? We'd instantly feel empathetic for the guy and forget we were concerned about our own lives! Poor Henry, whoever he is). Does that make sense to you? It resides within us as we think it, but it is not of us. The more you see this for yourself, a space between you and what you're experiencing organically appears so you can allow the experience to pass through you without fearing it or judging it, naturally bringing you back to a neutral, peaceful state of mind.

The true nature of who we are is content and present in the moment. That's why any time we're anything but these things, our body alerts us via feelings and sensations that we're believing our thinking that's made-up and untrue for us, in that moment. We've been hijacked and we're believing the culprit... We're using the beautiful gift of Thought against us.

I love this metaphor: picture a snow globe. You pick it up and shake it like crazy in every direction, causing the snow to whip and whirl around inside the globe. What do you do when you want the snow to settle? Do you tell the snow what to do? Do you judge the way it's falling or whirling around? Of course not! You put it down or hold it still to allow the snow to gently fall to the bottom... the same goes for your thinking. I understand it's difficult when your thinking is making you feel uncomfortable (that's usually the point we start judging it and wondering what it means about us), but just like when you get a cut on your arm and your body sends everything needed to that cut to begin the healing process, if you don't DO anything to mess with your thinking (make sense of it, judge it, breathe life into it), it will settle. It will move through. It will pass. It will adjust itself. As much as you want to feel at peace and 'yourself' without your thinking, so does your mind.

Nothing within you is ever fixed, you are a whirling energy of change being held together by a skin suit. It is absolutely human to have expectations, beliefs, and values - but guess what?! Those are all fixed thoughts, so if anything challenges those things, you feel nuts inside and you won't even be able to see the challenging thought or experience for what it is because you're all wrapped up in what it isn't. Is it bad to have expectations, beliefs, and values? Well, expectations will kill ya.. but beliefs and values? Absolutely not. But the point I'm trying to make is that the more you are aware of what they ARE [thoughts], the more you can ebb and flow with what feels right in your Wisdom, your gut instinct, to then assess, act and experience life from the well of peace and contentment you are residing in under the distraction of the busyness in your mind.

The more I see all of this for myself, the more I realize how truly separate our spiritual selves are from our human selves, and the only thing that toggles us between the two is this magical gift of Thought. I'm literally giddy when I am in flow with my Wisdom and the Universe then I get tossed into my insecure human self. I'm serious, it literally makes me giggle because it's an incredible thing to see! I will forever have that duality of course, and I will forever have moments of being gripped by my thinking because I'm a human being! BUT the moment I remember what is going on and what it is that I'm experiencing when I'm gripped, is when the gratitude and joy kicks in that makes me so happy to be alive and have this understanding. The wealth of who I truly am: love, joy, peace, resilience, confidence.. comes shining through and connects me to the heart of life and others around me. It spills over in every direction and what unfolds for me from there feels like pure magic.

What it feels like to see the magic...

Lastly, I want to leave you with a nugget of wisdom from Mike. I often say that it takes courage to trust and surrender to all that we are and all that unfolds from that knowing, from our Wisdom, our Soul. Mike shared that it felt to him like that was actually the easy part. From his perspective, what takes courage is knocking down the walls of thought that have kept you from surrendering to all that you are and all that you truly know, in the first place.

I completely agree.

Here's to you and all the courage that resides in the wells of your being to choose a different perspective that will knock down those walls. I can't wait for you to see what life can be like once you do.

It's Saturday night, the weather is a perfect SoCal temp of 75 with a breeze, the sky is so clear that the nearly full moon shown brighter than the lights below and Mike and I are at the stunning Getty Center museum to see Combo Chimbita, a Colombian rooted NY-based band that gives all the funk, soul and cumbia one could ever wish for on a date night out.

The beautiful Getty

There were views of the city, drinks, dancing (so much dancing) from EVERY age you could think of (variety at it's best since the concert was at a museum), we were ALL having the time of our lives. Then all of a sudden I hear the fierce lead singer Carolina Oliveros say "I don't know what's going on" while she then turned around to stare at her guitar player. Being that Mike is a guitar player, we both knew what was up and were feeling for the guy. His pedal board lost a connection, a power cord came loose - something of that nature. Mike has had to deal with this mid-gig on a plethora of stages as well, but any time I've seen him experience it, he's like a magician. He tests all the possible problems, finds the glitch, and wails right back in time with the tune, merely moments later. The bigger point is, whoever Mike is performing with (especially lead singer Brian from Brian Buckley Band), they ALWAYS continue to sing or improvise, allowing Mike to get it together and the audience is none the wiser.

*Here comes the point*

Instead of allowing that process to happen, lead singer Carolina who had already announced her insecure thinking ("I don't know what's going on"), walked off stage and motioned to the band that they were done! After many minutes of the band talking to each other side stage, much to the chagrin of all who were in attendance, she came back to the stage to say they could not go on and thank you to everyone for coming. Granted, they may have had 20-30 minutes max left of the show, but that's not the point. I literally witnessed her become completely hypnotized by her insecure thinking, ESPECIALLY after having announced it to the world because it threw her into a horrible thought storm that made her nearly dizzy with stress, and off the stage she went. In that moment, I knew I couldn't save her because she had to come down from it all, but I desperately wanted to run after her and tell her what she had just experienced and that she didn't have to let it own her the way it did.

It doesn't matter if you're a performer or entertainer, you can relate to this experience if you've had to have a hard conversation with someone you had a bunch of nervous/insecure thinking about, you've had to deliver a speech at a wedding or give a presentation at work - all of these experiences are susceptible to overthinking in the moment and leading us to having flashes of insecure thoughts that make us blank-out. I used to experience it A LOT as a dancer - like, A LOT. I had SO much insecure thinking around doing well, being good enough, thoughts of being judged when I stood on the audition line, the works. It didn't matter how much I self-talked my way out of nausea, nearly EVERY audition was a mental war. And here's what's worse! I adore dancers and dancing with all of me, so I networked my way into tons of auditions - but do you think being invited to a tiny private audition for a replacement dancer for Beyonce (my dream job at the time), being run by a friend of mine, eased any of the insecure thinking? Nope! The bigger the stakes, the more love I had on an audition because of hopes/dreams/not letting friends down?! The worse the thought storm. In hindsight, each and every one of those opportunities were learning experiences to help the depth of my understanding now, but holy cow was it a painful fight...

every. single. time.

And here's the thing, just like I experienced as a dancer and what I witnessed on stage at the Getty, when we breathe life into that insecure thinking, when we give it value and make meaning out of it, we completely lose ourselves - our GREATNESS - to that thinking. We get lost in translation. We don't show up to the world, the performance, the presentation, the meeting, the conversation, as our true selves. Our light doesn't shine and we aren't able to connect to the heart of others because we aren't present, we're lost in our own reality upstairs that has nothing to do with the moment.

What would I suggest to the amazing and badass lead singer of Combo Chimbita? If you recognize that something is going off track, there's absolutely nothing wrong with acknowledging it, but with the understanding that your mind is constantly bringing you new thought and that you can let it move through you, any opportunity to take a mere moment of pause and choosing to stay in the moment (maybe even saying to yourself 'stay in the moment') will naturally and effortlessly bring you fresh new ideas straight from your Wisdom that will keep you in flow and creative, in an instant. Like I was discussing with Mike, if she had taken that moment of pause (and I'm talking a quick deep breath in, breath out type of pause), amongst a myriad of other options, she could have come to the front of the stage and sang acapella with her Guacharaca. And guess what would have happened should she need to go totally rogue from her original set up and do that?! We as the audience would have been in complete awe. Her voice, her instrument, would have bled love and connection more than anything she had planned in her original set. And if you need an example for being tripped up in a meeting or presentation or speech? Taking that moment of pause can lead you to keeping things light - maybe sharing that you've had a brain fart - no matter the level of serious in the room, humor brings everyone to the present in an instant. Whatever it may be, those are the human moments we connect to - those are the moments that move us - those are the moments we remember.

So if you are a performer or an entertainer, a bridesmaid with a speech or you're concerned about a future meeting or conversation, KNOW that we always rise to the occasion when we're in flow with the moment. When we drop out of our thinking, even just momentarily, magic happens. The Universe has our back and our Wisdom drives the train.

Hallelujah, I have just completed Whole 30. Can we get a collective Amen?!

AMEN!!!

One more time for all the folks in the back!

AAAAAMEN!!

Woohoo! I DID IT!!

For those who aren't familiar with Whole 30, it is a diet plan (I hate the word diet, but there you go), that you stick to for 30 days (no sugar, alcohol, dairy, beans, carbs - essentially nothing that turns into sugar in your body), and along with weight loss and re-balancing gut health, the intention behind it is it to launch you into a lifestyle change with your food habits. I did it once before at the beginning of 2017 to get rid of some extra weight, which it did and I was so grateful for it. This time around I committed to it purely to re-balance my gut health. It didn't matter if I ate a giant salad, cooked veggies and protein, or a pile of fries or ice cream, my gut was bloating to make me look 7 months pregnant after every meal. All this to say that I feel great AND because life is my greatest teacher, I learned yet again that we always have choices to follow our Wisdom and not believe our made-up thinking, even when it comes to food.

But we always have choices on what to eat and not eat, Jessie, this is not new news!

I hear you! But this is a different conversation.

As I do for most of my days as best I can, I was noticing where my thinking was when I craved certain things I couldn't indulge in, when my mind was telling me I was hungry, or when I was grumpy and I would automatically think it was because of the restrictions of Whole 30. Just noticing. And what I came to realize for myself was that every single reaction in my mind that would kick up moldy, crappy, thought turds of urges, wants and needs, was that they were just that, thought turds. When I would have the thought "Ugh, I wish I could have a glass of wine with my dinner, I'm out with friends for god's sake!" I would notice it, or sense the upset feeling it gave me if that was the more obvious alert, and think to myself, "Do you really want the glass of wine? Or would you rather stick this thing through and get the benefits" and my Wisdom was loud and clear... skip the wine and stick this thing through. Immediate peace would wash over me, no will-power was needed, and I would continue to enjoy my experience instead of feeling like I was missing out. Another thought that would come through a lot was that I craved my favorite taco platter from the local taco truck, not just for the deliciousness that it is, but for the ease. Did I really want to feel the gut pain and bloat that I experience EVERY SINGLE TIME I eat that plate? Not at all. My resolve runs incredibly deep with not wanting to feel that way anymore, plus, it definitely wasn't Whole 30 compliant. So I asked myself, what do I really want? Wisdom: I want Mexican flavor and something quick. Great! Turkey meat lettuce tacos made at home will do the trick (and they were DELISH!)

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

Most of us have a ton of thinking around food. We're forced to make decisions about it multiple times a day, in every state of mind and every mood we fluctuate in and out of. We have habits that we believe are what we need to stick to, but more than likely we made that decision on a day when we made choices about what to eat, and we felt great as a result, so therefore we decided that's what our body ALWAYS needs. We heard from a fitness guru or a health guru or a fad that we can't have this, that, or the other thing, and even if the fad passes or the guru comes out saying that they have the new found key to ultimate health, that old thought is now ingrained in us so we don't sway from it, no matter how it actually makes us feel. And let's not forget the labels! Vegetarian, pescatarian, vegan, raw foodist, high fat low cal, no fat high carb... the list goes on and on.

Do you see how exhausting this is?

What keeps unfolding for me is that the more we have restrictions, habits we have to stick to, labels we have to uphold, the more thinking we have around the 'not having' or the 'not doing,' therefore creating a hell of a lot of internal pressure because we're forcing ourselves to stick to something that isn't necessarily right for us, ALL THE TIME. Think about it - let's say you have decided that you must have three meals per day at 8am, Noon and 6pm with snacks in between. At 3pm, you don't have your snack because you're overwhelmed with work. You now have thinking around the fact that you didn't have your snack, you're in a low mood on your way home because of it, therefore you grab chow mein because you deserve it (hello, low mood), and you eat the whole thing because you didn't eat your snack at 3pm anyhow. You feel like shit, bloated, feeling bad about it - but you're justified. What if you weren't even hungry at 3? What if all of that thinking just led you to this big greasy meal purely because of your thoughts that had nothing to do with hunger or what your body needed or didn't need?

Are you picking up what I'm putting down?

If our thinking is always flowing, if our state of mind and mood is ever-changing, if our bodies are constantly processing things differently due to stress, hormones, increased or decreased exercise, etc - wouldn't it make sense to go with the flow of what our Wisdom tells us our bodies need, as opposed to having any calculated, judgemental or rigid thinking around food? I've seen recently through social media that 'intuitive eating' is becoming a thing and there's already people nay-saying it - why? Because they don't understand the way their mind works and how to connect to their Wisdom. They've used it as an excuse to eat more crap because they think they're following their intuition to a more balanced experience of food, when rather, they're kicking up thoughts that lead to urges and bad habits as opposed to listening deep down to what their body really needs.

Now, am I proclaiming that if you are a vegetarian, you should stop being a vegetarian?! Absolutely not. If you have figured out that your body functions optimally when not eating meat, that's listening to your Wisdom. What I AM saying though, is that if in ten years you have a hit in your Wisdom that a meatball would do your body good, listen to it, don't judge it, just BE. Same for sweets or anything else that isn't a 'good-for-you' choice. The balance will naturally come the more we listen to what our Wisdom says we need and actually act on it (easier said then done, I understand, but totally worth it to observe). Our thinking doesn't have a hay-day when we continually make decisions out of our gut instinct (like everything I talk about!)

If your mood naturally balances itself without effort when you don't grip your thinking, if your brain's chemicals naturally balance themselves when you don't grip your thinking consistently (this is true, yet a whole other subject), if Universal Mind/Greater intelligence/Universe is always guiding you and pulling you forward for your highest good (hot tip: that's where your Wisdom comes from) - then food and eating falls within that same category of trusting what your Wisdom guides you to and you will naturally stay balanced. Does it mean you'd never have a bowl of ice cream again? Nope. No more chow mein? No again. My favorite taco plate? Nope! Again, balance is the key word here - when you aren't deciding from your intellect, your gut will lead you to the fun things, too. This also goes for food you previously decided you didn't like! (I'm looking at you vegetable haters). Who knows where your thoughts were when you tried broccoli for the first time - and when a friend forced you to eat it several years later, you already had thinking around how you knew you weren't going to like it. If thoughts are the gatekeeper to our experience, do you think you were going to fall in love with broccoli with all that distaste already floating around your head? Exactly. And lastly, should you make a food choice out of an urge or out of a reaction to your thoughts, that is OK too. Like anything else, knowing where you are on the map of being in alignment with your Wisdom/Universe versus succumbing to your thoughts is where the internal peace and health lies.

Again, knowing where you are on the map, and simply observing it, is where your peace exists.

With that, I'm stoked to be getting closer to my Wisdom for my food choices moving forward and hope it inspires you, too. It's incredible how the journey and the deepening of this understanding never ends, no matter the subject or experience.

I've been bubbling on what to share for today - I had a few ideas, good ones, but they were coming from my intellect. Experiences I have had lately that are great examples of being aware of the 3 principles in motion, but they aren't meant for today, my gut isn't sounding the alarm. Instead of pushing myself to sit in front of the computer, I stayed put, knowing my Wisdom would bubble up with something, even if it was in the eleventh hour.

And just like that, as Wisdom always does when you look the other way, it hit me...

I was sitting on the couch watching "The Great British Bake Off" on Netflix (the sweetest [no pun intended] show. I highly recommend it for winding down without having to commit to a storyline), and this massive insight hit me:

Our spiritual selves can be at peace even while our physical human selves, our bodies (or as I call them, skin suits) are experiencing physical changes or pain.

It takes a commitment to the observation of the interplay between the spiritual and physical since in the face of physical pain in our bodies, our thinking can run rampant. But if you can stay in a higher consciousness (awareness) of what is happening in your thinking, you will naturally be given the opportunity to stay in a peaceful, content (even joyful) inner experience. Think about pain or dis-ease in the body, of course you feel it, there's no way around it - every sensation: burning, pinching, prickling, tingling, nausea, etc. But as soon as you feel it, you have the free will to choose to continue breathing life into that pain by way of staying hypnotized by your fearful thinking around it OR you can be aware that you're experiencing physical pain (this is the observing of the interplay I was talking about at the top), and with the nature of how your mind works when you observe, a distance is created between you and the thinking around how much pain you're in, giving you the space to allow that thinking to pass which organically shifts your focus elsewhere.

WHOA.

The more I allow this to unfold, I'm brought back to the fact that our internal experience does not depend on our external circumstances; Therefore our physical pain would be in the same contention for outside experience, since our physical body is outside of our spiritual selves. Are you with me? (Hang in there, this next example will help make it more clear...)

For example, I have always struggled with a nauseated belly when I'm nervous. I was experiencing it the other day just before I left my house for a workshop that I was teaching. First, I was quickly aware that I was in my thinking about how the workshop would go, so my anxiety immediately dissipated when I said out loud, "Jess, you're not there yet which is why you feel anxious and nervous. You always rise to the occasion. Take one step at a time, come back to the moment." Realizing that I had become gripped by my thinking when I wasn't looking, then choosing to get in the driver's seat of my experience, naturally allowed the thinking and feeling to pass. However, because I had gotten so wound up momentarily, my stomach was still nauseated after I felt more peaceful, so my thinking, once released from my grip as far as the workshop, found it's way to focus on my upset stomach. As our minds work, it had a field day with my thoughts around my nausea and I quickly became hypnotized by it. I became even more nauseated as more and more insecure thinking was being created, and I even thought for a moment, "Should I just throw up so I can feel better?" But as soon as that thought swam through, I caught myself believing all of my made up nonsense and took the distance. I knew in that moment, that just like the nature of Thought, the nausea would pass if I didn't breathe life into my thinking around it. And sure enough, I was naturally shifted to focusing on other things and realized many minutes later that everything had left me and I was back in the moment. All of this happened within minutes, by the way, that's how quickly we can be overtaken, as well as how quickly we can catch ourselves and choose a different adventure.

You always have the choice when you observe where you are in your thinking...

Your well-being does not depend on your physical health.

Yet again, a moment of clarity that just came shining through. You can be managing anything from acute or chronic pain to terminal illness, and as much as you breathe life into the fearful or insecure thinking that swims around the physical attributes, because your feelings and emotions come from your thinking 100% of the time, you can choose to stay hypnotized by it or just be aware of what's happening, so it passes through you naturally. You cannot be destabilized from your well-being when you stay in observation and awareness. You are human, of course, so pain can absolutely take you by surprise, your thinking can run a 10k marathon before you catch it, or hell, you can suffer from your thinking around your physical pain just because you feel like it, that's the beauty of free will! But the difference between understanding how your mind and internal experience works versus being gripped by your chaotic mind because you don't know what's happening, is having the freedom to choose how you feel, inside. You are OK either way, because we are always OK (which brings peace in and of itself), but isn't it freeing knowing you don't have to stay gripped by an experience?

I recently received news that a family member close to someone I love dearly has been given a very tough medical diagnosis. Literally a moment before receiving the news, I had let out a big exhale from all the thought stressors of paying bills, money, the patience it takes to build a really thriving business (we're doing it, the benefits far outweigh the insecure thoughts, but hey.. we're human, too). I know it reads slightly petty to talk about bill stress after having heard such immense news, but that's exactly where the lesson lies. I had a flash...

It was a reminder from the Universe. Universal Mind. The Intelligence behind all things.

In that very moment of exhale I was reminded, with purpose, that what is really important is this life, this time, the love and connection we have to ourselves and to each other, the love that we stand in every day - our core, this moment that we're in - right now. I was hit with massive gratitude that myself and my family have our health, in this moment. That we can call and connect with each other, in this moment.

I reflected on the duality of knowing that your release is not far away, yet what a gift it is to be able to say and do and BE all that you are, and have always wanted to be, for yourself and your loved ones for the rest of your days. What a metaphor for us all to not wait until we're given the expiration date on our current skin suit to be our true selves and TRUST.

I've had many conversations come up lately with clients and family about the courage it takes to truly follow your Wisdom that is always with you, within you. I understand it, wholly. I've been there. It can take literally one thought shift to look at things differently, but as long as you believe the illusions that your thoughts are creating, it can take as long as you need to turn your back to the thinking that isn't real for you - it takes courage. It's a journey of unlearning. We have been told our entire lives that we need this, we need that - for a peaceful life. Even the idea of positive thinking and gratitude - it's been pitched to us that if we don't have those things then our lives will not be the greatest they could be - merely adding more stressful thinking when we feel like we don't have it or can't find it. Here lies the unlearning:

You are already standing in peace and wellbeing that brings forth gratitude, love, joy, contentment. It is intrinsic within you - a constant. It may look like we are on a rollercoaster of our wellbeing going missing from time to time, or even for long periods of time, but it is only our thought-created world within us that distracts us from our wellbeing that doesn't ever go anywhere.

For me, it took a solid year and a half to do the biggest chunk of unlearning to date, and that doesn't include when I first found the 3 Principles, the base to my work, a year before that. While I was studying the understanding behind our true nature and the way our minds work (and maybe this is you right now, with reading my articles), I was constantly left with a good feeling after reading the different books and watching videos of Syd Banks discussing our spiritual nature, yet I didn't have the wherewithal to see it for myself. I would still get incredibly gripped by my thinking - I was in a major career transition and the thought storms were immense. I had so much insecure thinking that I believed to be true that I thought I was the only person on this planet that this understanding was not going to apply to. And yet, I kept going, I kept reading, I kept studying - I couldn't put it down because in the midst of reading and listening, the truth behind the information left me in such a good feeling I knew I had to trust it. That was my Wisdom that was naturally giving me the courage to trust. It gave me hope even when I felt like 'I' had gone missing.

After all of my studying, truth be told, the insights began to roll in the moment I stoppedthinking about it (how's that for a mind twist). From listening to leaders in the field of the 3 Principles, it occurred to me that up to a certain point, I had been using my intellect to try and understand it all - how we function and how we can listen to our Wisdom and trust it. It sounded right to me, but I was still analyzing it with my prideful student brain. In all my innocence, I thought I 'had it' because I understood that my feelings were coming from my thoughts, I understood that I look at life through the lens of my thinking in any varied moment, and I understood that the answers to all of my life's twists and turns laid deep within my belly of Wisdom. I understood it, but I hadn't yet realized it for myself (does this sound like you?) I had a moment with Syd's dear friend Elsie Spittle who told me that even in the moments of life looking difficult, she lives in the feeling of excitement of what the next moment or day can bring. With the nature of Thought, she can trust that her current feeling will pass when she lets it. She can trust that when she follows her Wisdom on a moment to moment basis, her goals and dreams will come TO her, and how it all unfolds is always beyond her imagination (and telling me these things tickled her so much she was giggling just sharing it with me, after 40+ years of living this way). I could feel what she meant...

I could feel what she meant.

It was now in my hands to be active in my experience and drop the studying. When I was conscious (aware) that I was being gripped by my thinking (at the time, a lot of that thinking was being worried about things 'working out' in my new career and everything that comes along with that), I would recognize what was happening, which would naturally allow it to pass. It honestly felt like magic. And the moment the gripping, insecure thinking passed, my Wisdom would bubble up and give me guidance and assurance in what to do next. Many months later, I can tell you purely from experience, that the voice of my insecure thoughts is not only quieter, but more rare. The positive thinking and gratitude that we're told we need to experience a more beautiful life? Yes, they make life so much more bright and colorful and rich! But they bubble up naturally and effortlessly without me having to work at it. I spend more of my time in a state of curiosity, excitement, joy, and peace. And what happens when we're peaceful inside? Our Wisdom becomes the louder voice, and when we follow it, life unfolds... just like Elsie said it would.

Sometimes I'm in awe of this state of being. Will thinking and emotions grip me in the coming days, months, years? Abso-friggin-lutely... because I'm human. But having the understanding of what's going on inside of me gives me the tools to not be afraid of what I'm experiencing, which in turn brings me peace even in moments where I can't see clearly.

The take-away today is not to step away from this article thinking you have to work hard at your awareness. Quite the opposite. I share my personal experience with you so you can see that the more you just notice where you are in your thinking, the more you'll naturally be guided from within and see life's little miracles (life hack: your body always tells you where you are in your thinking... and sometimes you'll notice it there first. If you feel yucky in any way possible... you're believing your thinking that isn't real for you). Let me also remind you of this:

You have all the courage you need to follow your inner compass and experience your life to it's fullest potential. The only thing that stops you from trusting it is your thinking that it is impossible for a feeling within you to be the truth. When in fact, it is. Myself among many others have surrendered to it, and life couldn't be more beautiful. Don't wait another moment to be your whole self...

Really feel out this statement: Your emotions get in the way of every great thing in your life.

On first reading, does that feel true for you? Read it one more time: Your emotions get in the way of every great thing in your life.

Not so long ago I was putting some new thought into redefining what I do and how I explained my work to the world because I was finding my old descriptions were getting lost on people. Saying that life is actually an illusion and it's all being created on a moment to moment basis by your thinking, is quite meaningless to people when all they've asked is, "What do you do?" As I searched and bubbled on the question "Why me?" considering there are a million and one self-help gurus, therapists, healers, reiki masters, etc for people to choose from when feeling in the dumps or needing help to make change in their life - this is one of the lines that bubbled up:

Your emotions get in the way of every great thing in your life.

The more my intellect put that statement to task, it became more and more clear to me how true it was. I have absolutely experienced it in myself and I have definitely witnessed it in my friends and acquaintances around me. And I'm not talking about the beautiful, love-filled emotions that connect you to the heart of others and your surroundings, I'm talking about the emotions that fill with you with worry, fear - the emotions that make you feel guarded.

Think about how often an emotion is the thing that stops you from moving forward, from connecting, from risking, from being your ultimate self. Let's start off with the glaringly obvious moments where it stops us: Asking for a raise or promotion, a major audition, having difficult conversations with our partner, having difficult conversations with our children or family member, having difficult conversations with our friends, buying a house, moving out of our current living situation, taking the leap into a new career, socializing at a networking event... this list can go on and on. Then we can boil it down to the minutiae of our daily living when an emotion gets in the way: Seeing an old friend at the store unexpectedly (and most often, avoiding them), witnessing a stranger being emotional and not reaching out, adoring something about a stranger and not letting them know, eating a treat, NOT eating a treat, saying no to intimacy with your partner (this one hauls in a plethora of emotions that can get in the way: too tired, too overwhelmed, too much on the mind, too little time, putting it off... etc), getting out of the house to exercise, reaching out to a friend to catch up... seriously, this list can also go on and on.

For a lot of you out there,with most of your daily experiences, your emotions are holding you back from actingout of your wisdom.

Why?

Because with every thought, comes a feeling. To say it differently, you are feeling your thinking 100% of the time, not the experience in front of you. When it comes to moments where we have to risk, be vulnerable, connect without expectation - we jump right into fearful, insecure or judgemental thoughts, and guess what that does? Well, because feelings go right along with those fearful, insecure or judgemental thoughts, that thinking looks really real in that moment, and even though you've made it up, you believe it more than your wisdom that was about to take you into action.

Now, will your wisdom misguide you? No - never. Your gut instinct, your wisdom, is rooted in who you are before all of your thinking. On top of that, like a wave in the ocean, you are a part of a greater intelligence behind all things, a Universal Mind that is keeping you afloat even when you aren't paying attention. And who you are, who every single one of us IS at our core, is pure love, understanding, peace, joy, appreciation and gratitude. If you don't believe me, think of a time when you're most peaceful, joyful, or relaxed - got a picture in your mind?

Now check in with the feeling in your body... feels pretty good, right?

You just experienced in real time, a feeling that came from your thinking (and if you just plowed through reading this, go back and invite some beautiful experiences into your mind, I don't want you to miss out).

When you're in that peaceful place, that is what I call having a neutral mind, it's what you auto-correct to when you aren't being deceived and distracted by your thoughts. And when you're in neutral, wisdom has room to bubble up. By the way, sometimes our wisdom will tell us to hold back, don't go over there, don't make that call, don't talk to that person - but it's always for our highest good, guiding us down the path of least resistance EVEN in the face of life seemingly showing us bold resistance. Your internal experience does not depend on your surroundings or circumstances, you don't have to take my word for it, just listen to the feeling inside of you after reading this - your own wisdom will tell you.

So to bring this right-to-the-point lesson full-circle: Life is too beautiful, exhilarating, fulfilling, loving, moving... for you to miss out on connection and being your true, ultimate self 24/7. Emotions will happen, thinking will grip you... you're human! My thinking still grips me! I just allow it to pass within moments these days as opposed to hours or days later, because if it doesn't feel good, it isn't true. When you allow that gripping, insecure thinking to pass, the feeling that fills you up - the warm and loving emotions - will change your life. And from there, you have the freedom to choose what is best for you, always. You have the tools to master your behavior because you aren't living in your own reality that no one around you is even privy to.

I will leave you with a quote from Sydney Banks, the beautiful human being who had the insight into how our minds truly work:

If people could learn to stop reacting to their experiences in life, we'd all be fine.

So simple. So true. Let that sink in. Re-read it. Realizeit for yourself. To the extent that you understand that you don't have to take your experience or your thinking or feeling seriously, you are protected from being destabilized. You just observe it, and you're back to neutral.

So for this week, do me a favor and be a witness to your internal experience. That's it. Don't stress about doing anything about it or working at anything. Just witness it... that in itself is going to bring beautiful shifts in your experience of life. It will look a little more like this...

The feeling, in this moment, I am going to do my best to describe. What you've read above is the phrase my best friend and voice for healing, Natalia Cordova-Buckley, engaged in with the crowd of thousands at the Families Belong Together march this past Saturday. This was her rallying cry at the end of the most heart-to-heart, honest, and inspiring speech, translating to: "YOU ARE NOT ALONE!" for the families, single mothers and children being faced with more pain and suffering when they had dreamt of hope, change and belonging when arriving to the U.S. She spoke to the humanity in all of us, she spoke to the wisdom in all of us, she spoke to the hope in ALL of us; And in that moment, while I and thousands of others raised our voices to the ether in unity, with love coursing through us, I felt the Oneness.

Oneness?

Yes. I couldn't tell you where I began and where the world and people around me ended or vice versa. I've had experiences of this feeling before when I am in ultimate bliss and peace, but it was magnified times infinity. Of course my love and pride for what Natalia was so bravely speaking to, the fact that she was standing in her purpose, in wisdom, in flow, blew me away with gratitude. But additionally, to look around to see every walk of life, every ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, socioeconomic background, coming together for the same purpose - for humanity - created a whirlwind of electricity and light that swirled all around my insides and came pouring out of me and all around me. My awareness brought to life, yet again, that we are truly all coming from and functioning within the same energy, the only differences between us is our thinking. My heart, my chest and my belly all felt warm - tears streamed down my face. THIS is what we ALL are at our core - we are love and understanding in motion, our heart connection is inevitable, when we don't get in our own way.

When we don't get in our own way.

I share experiences every week to help identify and explain the energy of Thought as well as the content of your thinking and how you can move away from it. About your wisdom that comes from Universal Mind - the greater intelligence of ALL things that you can distinctly identify by that nagging feeling in your gut when wisdom is trying to tell you that YOU have the answer. About how your Consciousness goes up and down all day every day, depending on if you're aware and can observe where your internal experience is coming from. Need a reminder? Here's an example of higher Consciousness (awareness) "I'm feeling so anxious right now. What am I thinking about? Oh, next weeks meeting, and since I'm not there yet, I'm feeling anxious. Ok - let those thoughts go, I'm not there yet, wheww... " Result: back in a peaceful, neutral mind - back to the moment; Versus feeling anxious, reacting to that feeling by getting mesmerized by your thinking that created it and getting deeper and deeper into the whirlwind thought storm by having more thinking about the thinking that created the anxiety in the first place. This is the result of lower Consciousness because you're reactive to your internal experience as opposed to observing it (by the way, we're all human.... we ALL experience the roller coaster of Consciousness, don't stress).

Alllll of this to say that when I share these experiences, these observations, they're based in ordinary life occurrences that we can all relate to, but guess what? Having this understanding relates to politics as well. I have an intuitive notion that some of you just read the word 'politics' and the hair on the back of your neck stood straight up, no matter what side of the line you're on. Isn't that amazing? That is evidence, right there, of the power of thought. Just the word 'politics' can send you off into a hypnotic world of thinking and now you're having a different experience. Maybe it triggers fear that I'm going to launch into a political debate, maybe it triggers your fears of the state of our country, maybe it triggers your feeling the need to defend yourself because you're in support of the current administration - maybe you're feeling none of these things in this moment but you've experienced exactly what I'm talking about in other situations. But the reality is, just as we have the free will to change on a moment to moment basis depending on our thinking in that very moment, we have the free will to shuck and jive in the political climate. You may be thinking "That's impossible! My politics reflect my values and who I am!" Well, that's exactly it. So many folks get caught up in the thoughts of who they have identified themselves with/who they have labeled themselves as (or who their parents/families identified with, so they've adopted the same political affiliation), that they lose sight of what is happening in the moment in our country. They don't see what is unfolding, therefore they aren't given the opportunity to be curious about if what is unfolding is truly a reflection of what they value, or rather, what feels right to them. It truly does, like everything else in life, boil down to a feeling inside. If what you're trying to process about the state of our country doesn't feel right to you, then honor that feeling. Know that that is your personal alert system within you telling you that something isn't right, and it only takes one thought shift, to have a different experience.

If you are sensing by any stretch of the imagination that I'm trying to sway you a certain way politically, I'm not - and if you feel that way, you are looking at me through a lens of thinking that has nothing to do with me. Maybe I have stirred up something inside of you, and I would encourage you to get curious about it. What I AM saying though, is that I know with ALL of me that every single person on this planet is standing in the middle of mental health and stability, and that connection I felt so strongly at the march was the connection that exists between each and every one of us. We often miss the opportunity to feel it (both the connection to others AND our mental health and stability) because we're caught up in our mental chaos. That's it. We're at the movie theater but we're watching a different movie on our phone, missing all the action on the big screen. If anything that is unfolding in your community or the country is giving you a nagging feeling but you feel so identified by your political party that you're ignoring that feeling, know that your identity to your political party, like everything else, is just a thought. It is your right as a human being on this earth to honor your feeling first, and use your free will, to abandon that thought. It's much less lonely, it's much less divisive. And may I add some personal two cents? Where we are today has nothing to do with Democrat or Republican - it just doesn't. The core of every experience right now is our humanity being put through the ringer, period. I have chosen to let go of any previous experiences or judgements of everything having to do with a political label, because it has been proven to me, time and time again, that once a thought is released, humanity shines through - no matter what party you used to identify with, or plan to go back to, once this nonsense has passed.

To close, I would love to share a portion of Natalia's speech that speaks directly to the heart of every human being - our ESSENCE - nothing more.

"... I urge you all to continue participating. To take action as you are doing by being here today. Some day these children will read about this in the history books. They will read about how kind hearted strangers fought for their freedom and rights. They will know they were seen. They will know they were welcomed. They will know that they belong. They will in return do the same for others. THIS IS HOW WE HEAL HUMANITY!"

Pictures above of the Los Angeles Families Belong Together turnout, Natalia speaking, the biggest squeeze ever after she spoke, a snapshot with Natalia and Marianna Burelli, and the crew.

I got this question in a text this morning from a best friend of mine who was curious about my opinion, and I had so many insights bubble up.

What I know for sure is that love is a constant. It isn't a state of mind or something that comes and goes - LOVE in and of itself is always there. The only reason we don't feel it now and again is because we are distracted by our self-critical mind. Picture sitting next to a beautiful flowing stream. It's so quiet all around that you can hear the bubbling of the water as it twists and turns around the pebbles and rocks. There's a rainbow-like hue just above the stream from the sun hitting the light mist that's hovering just above the water. And yet, you have your back turned to to this beautiful stream and you're analyzing the dark clouds you see off in the distance, wondering if they're headed in your direction. That stream of love is still there, even when you're looking away and giving more attention to your fearful thought storms, you're just momentarily (or not so momentarily) turned away from it - your awareness is shifted, but it's there, quietly bubbling along.

Unfortunately, as so many of us have experienced time and time again, we allow those self-critical thought storms to get in the way of loving OURSELVES... often. Maybe we can get to a peaceful enough place to turn sideways to the stream to see and feel love for others, or we momentarily dangle our feet in the stream, feeling full of love for an experience. But when it comes down to holding up a mirror to ourselves and being able to say, "I love every bit of what I see - my heart, my humor, my light.. my imperfections, my cracks and creases, my patience and my impatience - I'm in love with every bit of it." We often times put ourselves dead last on the love list. We are so quick to beat ourselves up, to judge ourselves for things we aren't doing correctly, for not understanding things quick enough or for our impatience and not trusting the flow of life! We get in the boxing ring with our intellect and try to outdo ourselves, with ourselves. When in reality, when we fill ourselves up first, when we follow the little nudge from inside (our wisdom), when we give ourselves GRACE - we immediately shift to a place of peace and understanding. As I said above, we auto-correct to our natural state of LOVE.

Energetically speaking, when we're in this state of peace, understanding, grace = LOVE, we are open to see the breadcrumbs from the Universe, we have room to accept more love - whether that be in the form of another human being, friendships, that promotion we've wanted, the job shift we've been eager for, or life just simply feeling easy - even in the face of circumstances that give the illusion of hardship. When we are in alignment with ourselves, we are in alignment with ALL - with Mind (greater intelligence of all things, the energy of all things), the Universe. Our self-love truly governs and is the root to all facets of our life.

Are you wondering how to have self-love? Logically it makes sense to you, but when you really think about it it sounds a little out there and not completely possible? Here's the thing, when you get in the drivers seat of your thinking - when you start to connect that your feelings come from your thinking 100% of the time, you'll know that when you feel off in your body, that is a warning sign from your bod to your intellect that you're believing your thoughts that aren't true - you have the opportunity and freedom to choose to observe your thoughts in that moment, instead of being triggered by them. You create an immediate distance between you and the chaos trying to wreak havoc in your mind, and that in itself will make you more peaceful. You are human, so sometimes you'll get sucked into the storm before you even recognize the moment of choice. But again, allowing yourself grace, seeing your thinking for what it is, will bring you back to that peaceful place and the moldy thinking will pass - it always does the moment it's diffused.

Next step would be to do something that you love to do that may even make you feel challenged. At least once a week, do this. It can't be going to the gym (even if you love it), or something that is career related - think of something you would love to do for YOURSELF, something that may have piqued your interest before, but you always stop yourself with "logical" thoughts. I guarantee you it will bubble up immediately if you ask yourself "What would be a fun thing to do for myself once a week" - catch it, don't let your thoughts tell you it's nuts or that you don't have time or money. A pottery class? Horseback riding? Boxing? Setting goals for longer walks or runs? Crochet? Music lesson? Swimming? Roller skating? Dancing? Cooking? Baking? The feeling of accomplishment and joy that will beam from your insides will create a shift IMMEDIATELY. The peace, the joy, the calm, the light that is created, opens up the information highway inside of you that will allow you to walk the blueprint of your life that is already drawn - and boy is it exciting and wonderful.

Are you hanging in there with me? Here's the thing, as I say to my clients and in every workshop or talk I give, allow this information to flow through you, just drink it in. Just reading all of this is naturally opening up your understanding of it all. The insights are already at work. It's hard for us as human beings to not conceptualize, intellectualize and therapize ourselves into oblivion. But again, that's just more thoughts about our thoughts that create stress and anxiety. Just don't go there, ok?

Lastly, as my friend asked, is liking ourselves the same as loving ourselves? For a moment I thought, "well surely we can have a moment amongst loving ourselves where we don't like ourselves." But the reality is, at our core, when we have love for ourselves, in the moments where we might think it's ok to not like ourselves, we're purely just off course of our wisdom and believing our thinking. For example, this same friend and I were texting a few days ago and in response to something sweet we were talking about I wrote back #METOO. In the moment I wrote it, I got a little funny feeling in my belly - it didn't feel right - 'Me, too' would have sufficed, but I sent it anyway. That funny feeling in my belly was my wisdom saying to not do it (the #METOO movement is very important to me, so it was a bummer to diminutize it). I went against myself, therefore not coming from a place of love and full circle: not liking myself. Did I beat myself up for it? No. I just thought "that was a bummer" and left it. But it bubbled up every once in a while for the rest of the day, so I finally text my friend back in the evening and said, "I wish I would've just said 'Me, too!'" We had a laugh because in the big picture we both knew I wasn't being a turd about the movement, I was doing the best with my thinking in that moment which told me 'oh, it's kind of clever' when my gut felt off, but I appreciated her listening nonetheless.

So is there a difference between loving yourself and liking yourself? It feels to me, in this moment, that they are mutually exclusive. As my friend so insightfully said to my response to her "Love is the foundation to the building and like is what can be built on top" - exactly. And it's all flowing, moment to moment. The more we swim in the self-love stream, the deeper our resolve to care for ourselves first before we beat ourselves up.

Get in that stream dear friends, lap it up. It's always there, even if you aren't looking at it, but life's too short to just be aware of it's presence as opposed to enjoying every possible joy-full moment that you could be playing around in all of it's sparkling, rainbow-hued glory.

I totally stole the title of this article from my husband. But in all fairness, he was talking about me. And he's right.

What is my Excalibur? My entire life, no matter what I've been engaged in - school, my dance career, my career at the agency, and now my business - once I have a goal in my mind and I can see the big picture, I am full-out with my energy towards obtaining that big picture and I climb the ladder to get there hard and fast (at least that's the illusion that my mind creates). I constantly think about what I could be doing to strategically prove that I'm capable of more responsibility or being promoted or hired. But here's the thing, the deeper into this understanding I get with every day that passes by, I've observed myself creating an immense feeling of internal pressure because of all my thinking that gets created from this mindset. Because the reality is, it's just more thinking.

I have to be honest - I've recently been thrown off my own scent a bit. Meaning, I didn't realize I was creating this pressure! Several months ago, I had already recognized and appreciated that that pressure feeling was something I used as fuel in the past - when I felt totally spent I just excused it all by thinking "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" – if the situation becomes difficult, the strong will work harder to meet the challenge, and I was that person! Proudly! It's such a natural second gear for many of us - it's our cultural norm, really. But what's incredible is that with this understanding of the mind, I had been observing my thinking, not getting triggered by it, so I no longer felt that pressure (I thought!). Until the other day I was so focused on big picture goals, I was staring off into space with a concerned look on my face and my husband Mike snapped me out of it. My internal pressure feeling had changed - it no longer brought feelings of anxiety and I still felt a sense of peace within, but it was a weight nonetheless...

I don't know about you, but I'd rather walk through my days looking and feeling like this...

Little Jess... sometime in the 80's

I was heading towards this bigger realization last week, as I had had an AHA moment where I was feeling this pressure (without recognizing it as that yet). I just felt worn out, wishing more things were unfolding faster and my brain wanted to question the greater Universal intelligence that we all live within. If my wisdom knew what I was headed for, opportunity wise, if I could see it AND I could feel it, why did I feel so challenged? Why was life feeling 'difficult' and my patience wearing thin? Then the AHA - if the Universe is always working in our best interest (which it is), and our feelings come from our thinking 100% of the time (which they are), this worn out and impatient feeling I was living in was completely self-created and was an opportunity (more like a big ol' slap across the face from the Universe) for me to go inside and see it. What a lesson.

It always boils back down to the very basics of this understanding, and I will be the first to willingly raise my hand to say that being human means being seduced by my surroundings from time to time. But the reality is, it's simple. Always simple. As Elsie Spittle says in her new book, The Path to Contentment:

"Innate wisdom is a spiritual fact - it's not just an idea or concept. At the same time that wisdom is of spiritual essence, wisdom is also extremely practical. (...) Over time, as I began to see more about the inner workings of my mind, I could see wisdom come to life for me and guide me in my day to day living. It was a natural outcome of simply enjoying my life and not trying to figure everything out with my intellect. I discovered that the more I lived in the present, the more wisdom was released from inside me so that it became my companion and help-mate."

I just had an insight. I've experienced this so clearly in my relationship with my husband, Mike. To this day, I trust and surrender to it's flow without ever getting my thinking in the way. When we met, he had just left a gnarly relationship of a few years and really didn't feel ready to jump back into something. We had spent three blissful hours talking right after we met, there was no denying we had found something special, so in classic Jessie form, I made the first call the day after that long conversation trying to force my way in. He knew we had something too, so we made the decision to literally check in with each other every day. Folks have asked me, "Weren't you guys nervous you'd check in one day and one of you would say you're not into it anymore? That would be heartbreaking!" And the reality is, yeah, that was a total possibility, but neither of us ever got into our thoughts about it. In hindsight, we were just trusting the feeling and we knew what we had felt really good and right. We didn't even call each other boyfriend and girlfriend for months, but it didn't matter. We just enjoyed the hell out of each and every moment, and each day kept leading to the next. Nearly 15 years later, I can't believe I'm just seeing this. Proof right under my nose that the more you enjoy life and follow your wisdom, that gut feeling, life will continue to unfold for you, every step of the way.

Sweet relief. I've come back home. Back to myself. Back to enjoying life and following my inner promptings of what to do next, then taking those steps when they come to me. The blueprint is already drawn, there's no need to use my intellect, my over-thinking and over-analyzing, to make me feel as though I'm doing more, accomplishing more or that I could be doing more and accomplishing more. Because the plain fact of the matter is, the more your intellect gets in your way in that matter, it can create the illusion that you're falling short because your head is 10 steps ahead in the blueprint, while wisdom is happily guiding you along at the pace you're meant to be at. Additionally, each step taken provides more information for the next. Something that our intellect could never 'figure out' for us, that's why the surrender to the feeling inside is so important.

My Excalibur is no longer my weakness, it just has a new responsibility - keep dreaming big, but slow down, follow my wisdom and enjoy the view. God that makes me excited, you?

I just returned from a wonderful little vacation in Seattle, if you haven't been, I highly recommend taking a few days to visit. There are so many quaint experiences to be had: From the momentary bursts of rain that the locals refer to as 'spit' (because frankly, that's about as bad as it gets), to the endearing observation of when the sun comes out - the locals have a cow and say 'The mountain is out!' because they can see Mount Rainier that is normally disguised by looming fog and clouds. From the architecture, the art, and the food, to the beautiful juxtaposition of the city with it's ever-growing tech population amongst the nature that is being preserved within the city, as well as the immense evergreen forests, mountains and water that surrounds it (the views from the Space Needle and other high points in the city such as Queen Anne Hill are to die for).

I found myself reflecting on my interactions with the world while I was staring off into the majestic Puget Sound, watching boats of every size moving like ballerinas across The Drink (another colloquialism from a local). Each boat left a different wake behind it, some left a little frothy trail and some left a huge dip in the water, with overflow creating a rip tide for everyone trailing behind. There is a wonderful saying that I heard from another dear 3 Principles practitioner, Barbara Patterson, that was so apropos to the moment...

What is the wake you leave behind you when you interact with the world?

Isn't that a fabulous question for reflection? It isn't about walking on egg shells because you don't want to bother anyone and create a wake - it's an opportunity to take in and observe the experience others have of you as you walk through life. Without creating more thinking around how you should be, or judgement on how you've been, just take in the understanding that you always leave a trail of influence behind you, a feeling, and just having that idea in mind will begin to open your eyes to it. You know how once you learn more about something, no matter how big or small, your understanding naturally widens? Your world gets bigger just by gaining that knowledge? That's what I'm talking about here. Just by considering the question, What is the wake you leave behind you? Your perspective has already began to open up.

On that same idea but the flip side of the coin, have you ever noticed that you can often sense the feeling behind what someone is saying more than what is coming out of their mouth? Start to pay attention to it next time you interact with someone. The deeper you get into the understanding that your thoughts are your own and that you have your own experience of life unfolding in your head that no one else is privy to except you, the more you'll effortlessly want to be in the moment and experience the person in front of you in real time, as opposed to seeing them through the lens of your thinking that is mucking up their shine. Like I was sharing earlier, the awareness alone naturally brings you to the moment and allows for connection from your heart to the heart of others. You can clearly hear the intention behind what they're saying, then connection, magic and love unfolds. Truly! Even with the banker who is having a bad day and is a bit snippy with you: When you aren't in your world of thought during the interaction (aka: "Geez, he's crabby, he doesn't have to be treating me this way, should I tell a supervisor? Ugh, he's moving so slow, this is such an easy transaction!") you can sense what is up with them, that it isn't personal to you, and have empathy and love. Again, there is nothing to 'do' here, just the awareness opens your eyes to how you interact - where you're coming from when you speak to others and the influence you leave behind - both being the ever important feeling that leads to connection.

We returned from Seattle on Friday and over the weekend I was experiencing that energy drain that comes after vacation - you know the feeling, I need a vacation from my vacation? Yes, that one. And my dear husband Mike kept inquiring on if I was ok or not, if I needed something or if he needed to talk me out of my proverbial tree. Each time he would ask me, I would go inside, take a look around to make sure I wasn't overthinking anything or stressing about life. And each time I would recognize that I was truly peaceful feeling, I was just literally drained of energy (unusual for the old me, the old me would sense something off inside of me then I'd instantly get spun up about different things I thought I should be worrying about. But as the understanding of how my mind works has gone deeper, the more peaceful I've become - HALLELU!) Admittedly however, each time he would ask me, my thoughts would get a little more wound up around wishing he'd leave me alone because the inquiring was triggering me to analyze more and more - to look for dirt that didn't exist. So in that moment, I observed my thinking and saw that I was beginning to get irritated thoughts when the feeling behind what he was saying was purely love and care. Full stop. Instantly and without effort I was then able to speak to that feeling, because I felt it too. I was able to thank him for how much he cared for my well being and that each time he inquired actually made my mind want to jump off a cliff that didn't exist, so being quiet and hanging out together was all the fix I needed. What an incredible relief that was to him, and to me. It's incredible how much crap we create when we are listening through the noise of our busy minds as opposed to our peaceful heart.

With all of this reflecting I leave you with this: It's all in a feeling. When we're in touch with the feeling, we naturally are moved to it's attention and out of our distracting thoughts. We are all connected, we are all moving through life trying to make sense of our own personal thought world, even though it looks like we're trying to make sense of the world around us. The closer we are to ourselves, our home, the closer we are to each other.

Here's a little snippet of our ride down the Space Needle to give you a sense of the beauty of Seattle (and a quick hi from our very cheery elevator host who was in the greatest of moods because 'the mountain was out'). And yes... I added the tunes.

Is it the fact that I come from a family of therapists, so it's second nature to analyze the crap out of every little thing? (Which was quickly supported by my Psych education... Nervous? Stressed? Anxious? Dig in your past, you'll find the answers there... oh, bother). Is it because I'm an entrepreneur secretly stuck in the body of someone who wants a traditional 9-5? (I've tried that, so I know it isn't the answer, whew!)

Oh, it's because I'm human? Thank god... I can deal with that.

Since last weeks post (TRUST In The Timing), I've been made aware of the way I process life - lets just say that I don't do my introspection as introspectively as I thought I did - my husband Mike just the other day said, "Jesus, you have so many THOUGHTS!" which made me laugh all while giving me major insight. The insight was, here I am not getting emotionally hooked or triggered by my thinking (at least not a majority of the time), yet I still take the headline thoughts very seriously (particularly everything that comes up pertaining to my business). Do you understand what I mean? I do a great job of not getting tossed into a thought storm that I believe to be true which can result in anxiety and stress, but I still look at each thought with a magnified glass, as opposed to allowing them to pass effortlessly.

I hear ya, Pooh!

The understanding is about to go deeper.

See, the clearer I've become on the role of Thought in my understanding of the world around me: that we live through the lens of our thinking 100% of the time, and that our feelings come from our thoughts 100% of the time - the less I have been emotionally triggered by them. BUT now I have trained myself to grab a hold of a thought, try to make meaning out of it, try to see what the 'hidden message' is within it, then let it go back into the heavy stream of thoughts that flow when I'm done with it. Like catching a fish purely for the sport of the catch, then letting it go back into the water. Because I don't deal with anxiety any more like I did in the past, this new little trick of mine slipped under the radar until it was pointed out to me.

So if I'm not feeling anxious or getting emotionally triggered by this new trick of mine, what's the big deal? I'll tell ya: It keeps me distracted from my wisdom, therefore keeping me frozen instead of in motion. I find myself going around and around in my head some days about which move I should make next for my business: Who should I contact next? Should I start compiling all my writings for my book? Should I get back to my weekly or bi-weekly group meetings? Should I clarify a bunch of topics for guest pieces for online publications now? Or wait til I begin to reach out to them? And of course each idea comes with ten more ideas and guess what?! If I didn't stop to mull it all over and I just ACTED out of my wisdom, all of those things would be done within a day (and by the way, I know the answer is YES to all of the above). Of course I'm still productive, but it takes more effort to rise out of my brain and it's incredible how much time is lost to going around and around with it all. Am I grateful for my understanding of how Thought works so none of them are making me feel ill? ABSOLUTELY. But, I'm seeing now that there's yet another level deeper into the understanding, into the consistent peaceful abyss that exists for the taking - or should I say - for the being.

As per usual with lessons like these, when they show up in more of a brick-upside-the-head kind of way as opposed to a whisper kind of way, the Universe brought me the last piece of the puzzle via my mom and her recent insight that made me (and her) click into a deeper knowing of this thing called life. I am majorly paraphrasing, but it was something said by Sydney Banks, the wonderful human being who had the insight into the 3 Principles behind our human experience that my work is based in: Don't get caught up in the game of the thinking, just observe it. The game of the thinking. That is exactly what I needed to hear. Our thoughts are always at play, sometimes they're playing with knives during a storm, sometimes they're kicking a ball back and forth in the sunshine, but either way - observe the game, and keep honoring your wisdom. Life will continue to unfold for us when we get out of our own way with our thoughts - and what's even more magical? When we're not in our head, or rather, choosing to observe the game in our head instead of play it, we naturally come back to the moment and get to witness all of the little breadcrumbs from the Universe, allowing for the journey to be the fun part, not just the goal at the end of the journey. Wow, what a wonderful feeling.

Do you ever have too many things going on in too many different directions, where you feel out of control?

Ugh. Me too.

I recently got through a fit of anxiety and in the middle of it, I wished I could transport back in time to Saturday, when there wasn't a care in the world: I was with my husband, in a beautiful landscape two hours out of Los Angeles, watching our best friend compete in a riding competition with her stunner horse love-bug, Roxy (both Roxy & my friend did GREAT by the way).

This is me with Roxy, both without a care in the world (obviously)

That anxiety I mentioned? Well, in case you're new to my posts, our feelings always come from our thinking, and I was in a thought storm of things I needed to accomplish: Two important phone calls needed to be made, a workshop inquiry needed to be tended to, I was needing to write this blog post (which brings on alllll the thoughts about which experience or insight I should share with you all that would make the most sense or the biggest impact on your life); I had thoughts about my friends, my family, and the fact that I needed to schedule the following day (which brings on alll the thoughts about what needs to be done: exercise, pay that bill, pay for that class, post to social media, email that client, outline that workshop, call that friend, GO to said class you have to pre-pay for... oh shit! you haven't listened to that audio you were supposed to listen to FOR that class... ugh, be sure to fit that in too!) and so on...

And then I remembered...

"You're in your thoughts, Jessie. You feel nauseated, anxious, and out of control because you're in your thoughts. Look around, what's happening? Oh, it's a lovely afternoon with your husband, listening to music while he drives us to Target. Jesus. Come back to the moment, Jessie. Aaah, hello again." And then the anxiety dissipated, like magic. Out of all fairness, because I am constantly holding a candle to my life experience so I can put my work to the test and share with you all the results, I was able to see my thinking for what it was VERY quickly. That muscle is quite strong, and I expect it will get stronger every day for the rest of my life. But guess what? So can yours (yup, you heard me right... I am NOT special, to say the least, we're alike in every way).

If you suffer from overthinking which leads to anxiety or panic, hear me out on this (and if you're one of the lucky few that never feels an iota of anxiety, please send me the results to your latest blood test, I don't think you're human). Knowing that our feelings come from our thinking, I had this insight while my anxiety veil was being lifted. Name your anxiety. Literally give your anxiety or panic attacks a name - not the name of someone you hate in life or someone that has treated you badly, but a generic name that brings a smile to your face. Like Bruce or Liam - Ashley or Veronica (I have no emotional attachment to said names, so forgive me if I've listed off someone that's important to you!). It dawned on me that when my thinking is going around in circles so badly that I get anxious, it's not just because of the thoughts I'm thinking, but the thoughts ABOUT the thoughts. I can allow the list of things I have to do tomorrow to show up in my head and move through me, no problem. But it's when I start getting concerned ABOUT that list of things, therefore having thoughts ABOUT my thoughts, that the anxiety begins. SO if I'm beginning to feel the side effects of anxiety before I'm actually aware of the thoughts in my head, I can next time go "Oh hey Bruce, haven't seen you in a while, I don't feel like dealing with you today, thanks!" and I can go on about my day even quicker than going into the thought storm!

Ok so I have something to admit, after I had the insight, I realized I had heard of this technique back while I was in college for Psychology. But it was never as clear to me as it was when it came through my wisdom today. I want you to be able to recognize thoughts for what they are - that they're an energy of your own creation, a story of your own telling - that you can choose to believe, or not. But on your journey to gaining this understanding on a deep level, if it takes you calling out your feelings of anxiety by name so you can recognize it for what it is, as opposed to analyzing each and every thought going through your head (making the anxiety even worse!), then I say do it. For me, all I have to do now is say "Ugh, I'm having anxious thoughts," I check in with the reality of what's going on around me, and it passes. You will get there too. In the end, all it is is choosing to stop believing what's going on in your head as truth. But dammit, life can be hard. I understand. So let's grab a tool box and fill it up together.

It is so hard to describe a feeling sometimes, especially when an experience is so overwhelming to my mind that all I can do is cry. That is exactly how I felt this past Saturday joining thousands of humans for the Women's March in Los Angeles, and the above adjectives are the best I can do right now (and it's been over 24 hours). The March was the second in it's history, but the first that I attended, and with every vulnerable bone in my body, I admit to you that the reason I didn't go to the first one was because...

I was scared.

I had been SO upset about the Presidential election results, I was so depleted and at a loss for words for the lack of emotional intelligence in my country, I felt blindsided. Politics aside, how could someone with no leadership skills, no kindness in his heart, no respect for women, and no experience (to say the least), be elected into the most 'honorable' seat in the White House? I was sick to my stomach and sobbed among coworkers - it was the first time in all my years that an election would shake me to my core.

Then the light came. The first ever Women's March was announced and I felt rejuvenated. I would be there, at my first ever protest, to stand with women from every cultural background, socioeconomic status, life experience and age to send the message that we are no longer standing down and absorbing the belief that we are not equal and voiceless. The day grew near, conversations were bubbling all around me with feelings of excitement, and all I was feeling was scared. What was happening? When the March was first announced I felt such an immense amount of hope and like I could be part of the solution, a part of history, a part of this huge cultural shift that I was bearing witness to...

My thoughts.

I look back now and as the day of the March was getting closer and closer, I was allowing and believing my thoughts over my wisdom. What if we all got attacked? What if I became claustrophobic? What if I didn't get down there early enough to meet up with people I knew? And so on and so on. These thoughts, when typed out, look so meager and easily dismissible, but especially that first one looked so real to me that it brought feelings of anxiety and stress that froze me. The day came and I just. couldn't. do it. My alarm went off and I snoozed it, but I was racked with sweat and an upset stomach because I was going against my wisdom. By the time I got up, I'm sure I still could've made it (it was still morning, of course), but my thoughts won yet again: Telling me there's no way I could get down there in time or even consider finding someone I knew (because god-forbid I do this on my own!), so I may as well stay home. I don't know about you, but what I've realized from my past behavior is that if I go against my wisdom, I end up wasting a significant amount of time (in this case, an entire day) ruminating in my head - creating thoughts upon thoughts - as to why I made the decision I did. Justifying (again, just thoughts). On this day I eventually told myself that it was in my best interest, and my own form of protest, to work on developing my program, What Moves You. What better way to show my solidarity then to continue to flush out my work that would eventually be teaching people to follow their wisdom and take their thoughts less seriously - my way of helping humanity to never make such an emotionally detached decision ever again. Well, here's what's so ironic - that's a pretty beautiful conclusion I had come to, but I couldn't even type a single word that day or research a single book, because I was going against my wisdom, and taking my scared thoughts VERY seriously.

Cut to a year later, just this past weekend, and there was a quick moment I didn't think I would be able to attend. My husband and I had plans to go out of town, but we didn't have to leave til noon since he had to work (the old thoughts were coming up a little bit too, but these days I make a concerted effort to trust my wisdom, so I let it go to see what would come up). Sure enough, the spiritual work was already in motion because I happened to reach out to my best friend about a completely different subject, and she wound up telling me she was getting downtown by 7am for the March. There it was, I felt so in line with my wisdom that there was no denying it. The next morning I shot out of bed and got myself out the door with my "THE FUTURE IS FEMALE" shirt on (gifted to me by the same friend, no surprise), and I was giddy like a 7 year old on Christmas morning. As I've been witnessing, when I continue to follow my wisdom on a moment-to-moment basis, the rest of the day unfolds in my favor. And of course on this day, it went seamlessly and beautifully, so much so that I felt short of breath from the love expounding from my body. As I walked the 15 blocks from my car to my friends, the images I witnessed made me cry (remember the experiences that are so overwhelming to my mind that make me cry? Now we're caught up...)

"It's better to show up, than to give up" - Bernie Sanders

They tried to bury us - They didn't know we were seeds

Feminism is not a female cause. It is a human one.

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Above all else, I hope you see yourself in this story. I hope you can begin to recognize the moments in your life when your wisdom is moving you in a direction and your thoughts are the only thing stopping you. That you feel empowered enough from learning more about your thinking, that you choose your knowing. What I felt on Saturday was out of body, and that bliss is part of my life on a daily basis these days. I can only imagine what will happen as each day passes and the voice of my wisdom becomes louder than the voice of my thoughts, but know that this is absolutely possible for you too. What Moves You?

When was the last time you followed your wisdom, your gut instinct, to do something you really wanted to do? Something fun, out of the box, and completely for yourself? It's tricky, I know, because often times we get the pull to do the new adventure, then our made up thoughts come in the picture and clobber it with 'logic' as to why you shouldn't do it: You don't have time, you don't have the money, you've never been there so what if something happens to you? Maybe you've never done it before so you make pictures of what your experience may be like, what you'll look like or what others will think.

Oy vey - thoughts are exhausting, am I right?!

Well let me tell you, more than just the immense amount of joy you'll be met with from following through with what your wisdom is nudging you to do, is the magic that you'll witness all around you - the beauty of life and how it unfolds, all because you followed your soul-pull.

I recently followed through on a soul-pull to go roller skating, and I'm telling you now, what I experienced ended up being far beyond the joy I could've ever imagined (though I had a feeling it was going to be pretty darn magical). I grew up roller skating, so my nostalgia was through the roof. From the woman at the admission window (who had blatantly been working there for decades) inquiring if I'd be paying 8 bucks for a skate ticket or 13 for a skate and rent - said with her perfectly frosty pink lipstick and a 'honey' with every interaction. To the 80's carpet, the disco balls and the smell of nacho cheese and feet... I was in heaven. I got there right at the beginning of Open Skate and the throwback tunes were already bumping and skaters of every age, cultural background and skill level were zooming, falling and timidly holding on to the carpet wall, simultaneously and blissfully - let me repeat, I was in heaven.

Moonlight Rollerway, Glendale, CA - aka: HEAVEN

As I'm sure you can gather, my joy was through the roof. I went by myself and couldn't have had a better time bearing witness to everything going on around me: the sweet interactions between lovebirds, the care of a parent coaching their little one, the bliss of a senior skating circles around us all; And the gift of the quiet nature of skating itself, the space it allowed for me to reflect on my state of mind as I watched everything unfold around me.

So where's the lesson in it all, you ask? Well, I had a few bubble up for me. To begin, it is truly remarkable that when I listen inward, when I honor my wisdom and follow through with what it tells me, how any concerning thoughts about life simply melt away. When I am overwhelmed with joy and filled to the brim with that loving feeling, any concerning thinking that may normally plague me is either absent, or it moves through my head before I even have time to take it seriously. I can observe those thoughts passing through my head like the ticker tape at the bottom of a news cast, as opposed to a headline at the top of a newspaper. Additionally, when I'm in this joyful space, I am naturally and effortlessly brought to the moment. I become so open-hearted that I feel as though someone has cracked my chest open to reveal a glowing heart, and the feeling lasts as long as I choose to stay in it. And as you can imagine, when I'm not in my own world of thought, when I'm present and open-hearted, every interaction with the world around me is smooth, kind, understanding, effortless and even humorous. Can you think of a time, activity or vacation that makes you feel this way? How does remembering that thought make you feel? Isn't it amazing that just thinking about that wonderful experience brings you peace? And you're still sitting in the same spot, nothing has changed but your thinking (I'm looking back at you with a wink).

Speaking of life being more humorous when you're full of joy, I couldn't help but grin from ear to ear watching the kiddos in the rink. It was so wonderful to watch them fall over and over and over, and continue to get back up on their feet without a thought. Not only were they determined to be good at skating, but they effortlessly threw themselves into tricks and new moves without any hesitation. The ultimate lesson in following my wisdom being played out right in front of me.

As we age, we create so much thought around our experience - for example if we fall from skating, we create thinking that we're not good at it, so we stop. And not only do we stop, but we make up a story around that fall that lasts with us for the rest of our lives and affects decision making as long as we believe it. From that point forward, we will no longer skate because we 'always' fall - even though it was a one time experience. But who knows, maybe you had some fearful thinking in your head before you started skating that you may fall and embarrass yourself, so the fall is now evidence for that made up thinking (and heck, maybe you fell because of a tiny rock on the ground, or you turned around too quickly, or were human and lost your balance for a split second!) Isn't that incredible? It's amazing how many of us have created an entire world of thought around one experience, and that lasting thought (or thoughts) is then a cemented belief about ourselves, or that experience, for the rest of our lives. When really, it's a news headline thought that we've believed, and it's stopping us short from having new wonderful experiences because we have those lenses on anytime a similar opportunity comes up for us.

You see, as you may be beginning to understand, we live and experience our thinking, not the world around us. The more we can understand that, the more we aren't plagued by thoughts - we see them for what they are, let them pass, and come back to the moment. Life becomes more rich, full of color, peaceful and oh-so-enjoyable. Is there an activity or experience in life that you would like to have but the only thing that stops you is your thoughts about it? Are those thoughts true? Are they really true? How would you feel, and what would you do, if you didn't have those thoughts? It seems simple, because it is! With different thinking, we have different experiences of life.

Finally, with today being Martin Luther King, Jr. day, it feels fitting to share my final insight that brought tears to my eyes as I skated around this ol' skating rink. Humans want to connect. We want to help each other. We want to lift each other up when we fall, literally and figuratively. Without our prejudices, our judgements, our divisive and dividing thinking, we have the same goals of living a love and joy filled life - that's it, plain and simple. And guess what, if you take away that individual thinking, the individual reality we each live in, what are we? The same. We may be in different skin suits, but on the inside, we are totally and utterly the same. We are One. Seeing all of the people that came together to enjoy some skating on a simple Friday afternoon: From the two East Indian girls clinging to the walls and watching everyone take turns to give them pointers on how to skate better, to the African American mom helping her daughter skate and having every child gravitate towards her for help because her energy was SO welcoming. From the Caucasian senior citizen having a lovely lone skate willing to help anyone struggling around him, to the Armenian teenage couple that had the biggest smiles on their faces after he gave them pointers. Witnessing a new friendship evolve between the Asian group of twenty-somethings and the Mexican group of twenty-somethings in the matter of two hours. Every falling child and adult was lent a hand by another in the rink, every human being having the time of their lives and becoming fast friends with each other, I couldn't have been more proud to be witness to the love that is real between us all. What a gift.

So with all of this, dear readers, I hope you begin to honor yourself and follow what your wisdom tells you when you listen inward. And for the love of god, take your made up thoughts a little less seriously! Doing so will begin to effortlessly shift your energy and your experience of life, and therefore the world around you, as we are living a life from the inside-out, always.

Happy 2018 dear ones! How have you been?! I hope your Christmas and New Year were exactly what you needed, whether with family and connection, or space from it all, I hope you got some much deserved rest & relaxation.

To jump right in, have you ever been on vacation, finally at your destination that you've been looking forward to for months, and you get SICK?! If not, I'm sure you can relate in other ways such as getting sick the day of an event you've been looking forward to, or when a friend comes to town, or on your first day of a new job, etc. Oh, it's the worst. Like, really body? You couldn't have planned this a little better? Well it happened to me on a stunning trip to Mexico over the New Year, and frankly, I was a little taken aback by my peaceful state throughout the experience as well as the AHA's I was able to have because of my state of mind. Read on...

It's the beginning of the trip when my husband Mike and I have been notified that a majority of the family we're seeing once we arrive to Isla Mujeres (an island that is a 20 minute ferry ride from Cancun) have been dropping like flies (no pun intended) from a bug that was going around. No problem, we've got this! Mike has instilled in me that the moment you begin to think sick, you get sick, so we're already in the mindset of, if we get it, we'll fight it! ("I'm starting to get sick" vs. "I'm fighting something" is a great way to re-frame an illness into a positive action that keeps you more relaxed, the mind holds a majority of our healing power!) A few days go by and there it is... that little tickle/itch thing in the base of my throat that everyone was talking about. Of course my initial thought/reaction the morning I woke up with it was, 'Oh, damn it' - but what do I always say? Our feelings come from our thoughts, so I quickly moved to the positive and was grateful my throat wasn't sore, that my energy was up and I was looking at the most stunning views I could ever imagine. Behold... (and mind you, NO FILTER!)

As the days passed, the symptoms got worse, but I stayed in the "fighting something" mindset as opposed to succumbing to the sickness. Every time I was asked how I was doing I responded with different versions of "I'm definitely fighting something, but I'm good!" And truly, with the knowledge that I am always ok, my suffering would only be coming from my thinking around what I was fighting (not the sickness itself), I was left in a more relaxed and peaceful state of mind. Allowing me to be flexible with what my body needed, the plans ahead in the day and truly leaving me in a good mood!

So where am I going with this?

When we're ill, it's difficult not to acquiesce to all of our thinking around how shitty we feel, because the truth is, we feel shitty! It sucks to not be able to breathe without a gurgle in your chest or to have to pass on the Mezcal because your higher self knows it'll make you feel even shittier. But guess what? Without the thinking around our sickness - the analyzing every change in symptom, the thoughts around how we can't have a good time any more or how the vacation is ruined, or how we can't have a drink without knowing it isn't good for us (but by golly you're gonna kick your heels up in some capacity! Note: I obviously didn't always pass on the Mezcal) - without those thoughts, you are simply back in the moment, able to still enjoy what is in front of you - you just happen to also be fighting something.

Now, let me be clear, I am not saying that if you feel like crap and need to lay down and feel all the feels, that you should instead "think positive" and keep it movin. Heck no. Creating any more thinking between you and the moment you're in is going to create more stress in the body, ESPECIALLY forced positive thinking, when you're not feeling very positive. But the more you can take your thoughts less seriously in general, allowing them to pass like clouds in the sky, a more positive state of mind (aka: Mood) naturally bubbles up, giving you a more positive feeling.

This is the freedom from our thinking I always talk about, and this is just one instance in a plethora of many that we're met with EVERY moment of every day. Does it take work? Hell yes, especially when you're new to the understanding. Does it get easier? Yes, however, we're met with new experiences that challenge our thoughts all the time that can catch us off guard. Even after making it through the vacation in a pretty peaceful state of mind around my sickness, I was tested again on our flight back to Los Angeles. Cold medicine was sold out everywhere we went, so I flew sans drugs, which would've helped dry me up (ps... I flew with a scarf wrapped around my face in hopes to save other flyers from catching my snot monster). So when we were descending into Los Angeles, in the matter of one moment, I was in incredible pain in my face, even my teeth were zinging from my nerves going crazy from the congestion. After a quick trip down negative thought lane, I checked myself. I decided to focus on my breathing, visualizing sipping air into my belly slow and steady and being grateful that we were nearly home. And guess what happened? The pain didn't stop of course, but because my thoughts were peaceful, my body became relaxed and I was brought back to the moment. I looked out the window and saw this insanely beautiful moment... (again, no filter)

My beautiful city, all lit up, and La Bella Luna shining right in my face. I couldn't have asked for a more breath-taking experience to support me coming back to a peaceful state of mind.

So dear readers, I hope this story gets you a little deeper into the understanding that you are living from the inside-out, always - even when something like a cold is so seductively trying to convince you otherwise - it is your choice, in every moment of every day, to think something different. And in this case, not only did I benefit from being on top of my thinking because I was able to still enjoy my vacation, but my sickness didn't get too bad since I stayed relaxed (had I succumbed to my upset thinking, you can only imagine how sick I could have gotten had I sent myself into a stressful state!), and my husband and friends still enjoyed being around me since I wasn't in a miserable mood!

Happiest of Mondays to you all and I look forward to seeing you again next week. As always, be sure to leave me a comment or get in touch should you have any questions!

I know you've heard it before... "Follow your gut" or "What does your gut say?" But I'm here to encourage you from experience, after continuing to walk my talk, to truly DO IT... then sit back and watch the magic unfold.

In what I teach, following your gut is also referred to as following your wisdom. Your wisdom being that knowing that bubbles up one millisecond before your thoughts clobber the hell out of it. It is an innate GPS system built into us. It has all the answers on what is best for us on a moment to moment basis, no matter the situation we're in. From our safety and well-being to career choices; From relationship matters to what we're going to eat for dinner to our health, we know what is best for us, at all times. It exists within ALL of us, even if you feel like yours took a hike sometime ago.

So if we have the answers all of the time, then why don't we listen to and trust ourselves? Why are we constantly believing our negative thoughts over our wisdom, and justifying those thoughts as 'logic'? Well, the following things I know for sure: Fear of failure and making the wrong decision are definitely strong-willed thoughts that bring up some undeniably yucky feelings (reminder: our feelings are always coming from our thinking, not the world around us. Take a peak at last weeks post >HERE< for more on that). And when we have a whole mess of negative thinking around something that brings up awful feelings, it makes the negative thinking seem really real about the world around us. Another reason? Sometimes our wisdom tells us exactly what we DON'T want to hear, even though it is truly what is best for us. Need an example? Read on...

I started developing What Moves You while I was working at a top talent agency in Los Angeles. However, when I began working there, I had the intent of it being the career I would retire from - What Moves You was no where in sight. After about 8 months at the agency, I slammed into an emotional wall and had no idea what hit me. I continued to go through the motions of life til one evening I caught an episode of Oprah interviewing Jack Canfield (Author of The Success Principles and the Chicken Soup for the Soul series), and he said something that made me feel like he was talking directly to me...

"You don't want to get to the top of the ladder only to find out you had it leaning up against the wrong wall."

OMG... MIC DROP...

What happened next? The ultimate soul search. See, I had been so caught up in my thinking around how I couldn't believe that I, Jessie, the girl who always had a plan, felt lost. How could that be? That's not who I am! (Ps - that's just a thought). I had a lot of noise to sift through to get to my wisdom, even though it was always there. The first step was to read The Success Principles, which had fabulous information to help chip away at what my soul-pull was. Then one day, like magic, my noisy thinking had subsided while I was in the shower and the answer bubbled up from my wisdom... "Build a program that helps people get out of their thoughts and trusting their wisdom."

HALLE-FRIGGIN-LUJAH!!

But guess what happened next? ALL the thoughts.. "OMG if I have to develop something, how long will THAT take? Geez, that seems like I'm just wasting time! Wait, and what if I do all of that and it doesn't even work out? How would I even become successful with something like this?" Holy toledo did my thoughts go crazy. But do you know what was wonderful about that specific experience? Even though my wisdom had come through with something that wasn't a quick fix to my career stressors (it would have been so much easier to get a job that I could apply for with no real effort beyond editing my resume), it gave me the answer to my life's purpose, my soul-pull. Even though it wasn't an easy path, it was the right one.

Of course, I am human, and choosing to stay in the high-stress job for what ended up being nearly two more years while I developed What Moves You, felt like a giant mountain to climb sometimes. But every time my thoughts told me to get another job while I worked on my program because it was all getting to be too much, I would ask myself "Is it time to leave?" and every time my wisdom came back with, "NO." And do you know why? Working there evolved into my greatest education, even beyond my paid-for college degrees. It gave me the opportunity to put my work into motion. What do I constantly say? We live from the inside-out from our own, personal, thought-generated reality. And with this high-stress job in entertainment where everything looked like it was affecting me from the outside-in, I can tell you now after putting in the work of monitoring where my thoughts were all day, every day - we are most definitely, undeniably, living from the inside-out.

Why this story for today's Monday Musings? It felt completely right to share, heading into the new year. I want you all to begin following your wisdom, one small step at a time. What do you want to eat for lunch? Follow it. You've received an email from a co-worker that's a little passive aggressive and your wisdom is telling you to pick up the phone instead of email back? DO IT, you'll be shocked at how it works out for you. Yes, it may be uncomfortable sometimes, but I'm telling you, life unfolds for you in the most positive of ways when you follow it. Like I say ALL THE TIME, you are human, I am human; It's difficult to get in touch with what's right for us if we have a mess of thinking making a crap-ton of noise in our heads. But we will all be getting deeper and more in touch with our wisdom, learning to honor and trust it more consistently as we grow, every moment, of every day, for the rest of our lives. I want you to feel what it feels like, I want you to see the magic that happens when you do so. You will become more open-hearted, you'll create more connection with others, you'll begin falling in love with life, all over again.